The First 100 Pounds (81 - 90)

Potential conversation for you to have with yourself:

YOU: Hey! This is some sort of medical advice right here in this blog post!

YOU II: No, it's really not. This is written by a poet with no medical background whatsoever.

YOU: Okay. Perhaps I should talk to some sort of medical professional or something.

YOU II: Good idea, Smartypants.

If you want to start from the beginning, you can do so here. Here are 81 – 90:

81. I GET RID OF CLOTHES WHEN THEY'RE TOO BIG FOR ME

This was huge. I don't have fat pants and thin pants. When I shrink out of my clothes, I donate them to Goodwill or give them to friends who wear that size. I don't need a safety net, and when my clothes are too big I look like I weigh more than I do. So off they go to Goodwill, as quickly as I can ship them out. This all means that I'll never have a picture of myself standing in a single leg of one of my old pairs of jeans, and that's fine by me.

82. I SHOP AT GOODWILL. OFTEN.

Speaking of Goodwill, I am cheap. I hate the idea of spending real money on clothes that might, if I buy them a little small, fit me for a season. I also have problems with the politics of a lot of clothing retailers—I don't want to support businesses that outsource their labor to countries where factories are unregulated and dangerous. I don't want to support businesses that treat women like prostitutes or porn stars or objects. I know I can't avoid this completely (isn't that sad?), but if I get my clothes from Goodwill, I'm at least not supporting those brands, even if I end up wearing them. Buying used also fits in with my environmental efforts—no packaging, little-to-no transportation costs and fuel use, putting to use something that might otherwise end up in a landfill somewhere. Plus, it's possible to score really good, well-made, classic pieces at Goodwill. I've got clothes from L.L. Bean, Ralph Lauren, Ann Taylor, Eddie Bauer, and probably some places I can't think of right now. The most anything has ever cost me is $4.99, and some items cost $2.50, sometimes with the tags still on them. Sure, there's plenty of worn-out stuff at Goodwill, but if it's worn out, I don't buy it. Problem solved. Yes, someone I don't know has worn it before, but that's why we have washing machines (if the idea of this grosses you out, you probably don't want to know how many people touch your "new" clothes during the process of making them). Building a wardrobe this way takes patience, and it can be sad to try on a cool piece only to find that it doesn't fit, but it works for me.

83. I SPEND MONEY FOR NEW CLOTHES WHEN I NEED TO

That said, I prefer to have some basics. I like to own one pair of black pants, a black t-shirt and a white blouse—the rest of my wardrobe can rotate in and out of color palettes, but those three items go with almost anything else I might buy. I think about them as my essential teaching wardrobe, but the fact of the matter is that I want the same things in the summer: give me a pair of black capris and a white short-sleeved blouse and I am good to go. These things can be hard to find used in good condition. Think about it: you might stop wearing a certain shade of blue, or maybe your mom bought you a green shirt that makes you look like you died a week ago, but if you have a great black t-shirt, you wear that sucker into the ground. I also don't rely on Goodwill for special occasions. There are some events—like weddings and funerals—where I'm willing to shell out for the right dress, even if it means spending more money on one dress than I've spent on the rest of my wardrobe all year. This doesn't mean I don’t check Goodwill first—I do. I'm just prepared to spend money when I really need to.

84. I BUY TOOTSIE POPS

I have a problem with sugar. I get very involved with blood sugar swings, for one thing—I eat candy, my blood sugar spikes, it dips, I crave candy, I eat it, my blood sugar spikes…you get the picture. I've read a zillion studies and articles about studies, and I could give you a bunch of different potential reasons why I have trouble turning off the sugar once it's on, but I know about myself that I can't have sweets in the house. Not baked goods, not candy, not ice cream. I'm not going to say that I'm incapable of regulating my intake, but I'm damn close. I do know, however, that it is physically impossible for me to eat more than two Tootsie Pops in a single day—it would tear up my mouth Cap'n Crunch-style. So I always have Tootsie Pops in the house. If I'm craving something sweet, there it is, in a little single-serve, 60-calorie package. And—and I think this is the key to the whole thing—it takes me a long time to eat a Tootsie Pop. Think about, say, how many M&Ms you could eat during the time it takes to get through a Tootsie Pop—certainly enough to get into those blood sugar swings I was talking about. One lollipop takes care of my craving and takes long enough to eat that it doesn't kick off a cycle. They might be made of magic.

85. I GOT RID OF ARTIFICIAL SWEETENERS ENTIRELY

I tell people about this a lot. I'm convinced (and there are studies that back this up, although there are others who disagree) that artificial sweeteners cause more sugar cravings than they fix. I know I was never able to get a handle on my sugar intake until I gave up artificial sweeteners. I traded "lite" yogurts for organic yogurts made with actual sugar, and then, eventually, for plain yogurt sweetened with my own fruit; I turned in my Diet Coke Fan Club membership; I made the decision that if I was going to have sweets, they were going to be actually sweet—usually made in my own kitchen, and for some sort of event that would help ensure they didn't stay in my kitchen. A few months after I gave up my one lonely Diet Coke a day, I had one. It was disgusting. It tasted like a bubbly combination of the can it came in and some sort of industrial solvent. Which is kind of what it is.

What little control I have over my relationship to sugar, I have—I am convinced—because I gave up artificial sweeteners. For a long time I had a rule that I wouldn't buy sweets. It wasn't that I couldn't have them; I just wasn't a person who bought them. It kept me from having them in the house, but allowed me to have dessert when, say, we went out for a special occasion or had guests for dinner. At this point, I'm learning how to manage sweets and how to mitigate the damage they do. If I'm dying for a candy bar, for instance, I'll often get a Twix, because I can hand one of the sticks to Jed. The point is that when I'm craving something sweet, there's probably a physiological reason, and eating an artificially sweetened whatever-it-is isn't going to address the issue that caused the craving, and so I'll keep seeking it out, whereas if I just eat actual sugar, and figure out how to restrain the portion? I’m good.

86. I EAT FAT. AND CARBS. AND PROTEIN. AND PLANTS.

Because our bodies need them. Do lots of people eat too many carbs? Yes. Yes, we do. Do we eat too much fat? Yes. Protein? Often. Plants? Probably not so much. Although I love steamed vegetables with a love beyond measure, I have never said, "I just can't stop eating these steamed vegetables!" and I doubt anyone else has, either. But lots of people eat too much in general. If I go on a low-carb diet, I'll lose weight, but it will largely be water weight AND I won't be giving my muscles the glycogen supply they need to help me run well. If I go on a low-fat diet, I risk robbing myself of the fat-soluble vitamins and essential fatty acids (some of which my body cannot make) that I need to be healthy. I need it all—I just don’t need too much of it, and it's probably a good idea if I consider its sources.

87. I ADDED PROTEIN (AND FAT) TO MY BREAKFAST.

I was amazed at the difference this made. Half a cup of oatmeal plus applesauce and skim milk at 6:30AM = me hungry before 10:30. Half a cup of oatmeal plus applesauce and skim milk and about 15 grams of almonds at 6:30AM = me not hungry until after noon. An extra hundred calories of fat and protein buys me hours of satiety. If I'm going to have a long run that day, I'll add something to that breakfast: a bowl of cereal (the hours before a long run are not a good time to be adding fiber or worrying about excess carbs), or a hard-boiled egg, half an avocado, or a bit of peanut butter and honey on a piece of toast. Something like that. I'm going to need the energy.

88. I LISTEN TO CRAVINGS.

I've already said that if I'm having a lot of cravings for something specific, I usually eventually give into them. But I don't have a lot of cravings. When I start craving, say, ice cream, I wonder if it's because my body needs fat or calcium or sugar—or some combination. If I add a little more yogurt to my post-run snack or get a little more fruit into my diet and the craving goes away, I have my answer. It's not that I'm substituting one for the other. No one should ever try to convince me that yogurt with a handful of blueberries is "just as good" as an ice cream cone because all the people involved in that interaction know it's a lie. It's good in its own way, don't get me wrong. But it's not ice cream. Sometimes the craving is nutritional, and by meeting the nutritional need, I can get rid of the craving.  When all is said and done, if I still want the ice cream, I have it. And I love it. And all is right with the world.

89. I STOPPED THINKING IN TERMS OF "BAD" VS. "GOOD" WITH BOTH MY FOOD AND MY BEHAVIOR.

Eating broccoli is not "being good." Spending a day on the couch is not "being bad." If I say to myself, "I was good and ran ten miles today," then the next time my long run rolls around and, say, it's 90 degrees out (like it has been recently) with jaw-dropping humidity and I'm feeling a twinge in my left hamstring and it's the day before I'm supposed to get my period, but I manage to drag myself through eight miles before calling it a day, does that mean I'm bad? Of course not. Words are important. The way I talk to myself is important. I start most runs with the attitude that I will finish—it usually isn't even a question. If I'm not myself for whatever reason, I adjust that to, "Let's see what I can do," and far more often than not, I get to the end of my scheduled run. But behavior is just behavior. Food is just food. Look, brownies are delicious. Spending a whole day lying on a raft in the middle of a lake and lazily sipping something cool, fruity, and possibly alcoholic is also delicious in its own way. Then again, so is broccoli, and so is finishing a run strong.

90. I MAKE EXCUSES TO EXERCISE INSTEAD OF MAKING EXCUSES TO AVOID IT

This is related to prioritizing exercise, but it also has to do with me giving up the mindset that working out is something to get out of, like jury duty or dinner with relatives you don't like (I love my relatives, by the way, in-laws included). If I know I'll be spending a day with friends, I'll get up early and take a walk before breakfast so that I don't get lulled into taking a day off when  I end up not feeling like working out the evening after a day of socializing. It gets done first because it's the most important thing I want to do that day. Want to, want to, want to. Not need to. Not should. Want to.